At table-side-, there were six of us ... three were staunch fighters for Goodness, and the other three were just-as-staunch fighters for Chaos. On the field were an assortment of 25mm plastic figures, produced by Milton Bradley in the firm's BEAST MASTERS (BM) game. We had dwarves and crossbowmen and ogres and wolf riders and Men at Arms, etc. All sorts of fighting troops, which makes the game an excellent test bed for all sorts of rules. BM comes with a huge 5' by 4' vinyl map; I laid two of the maps side by side, hence the entire ping pong table was covered. The maps are gridded into large 6-inch hexes, and these hexes form the basis for the movement systems. About a year ago, I set up a game at a PW meeting using the BM assets, and was informed that the movement system was too complicated. The movement procedure consisted of dicing for the movement distances for each separate type of figure. Sensitive fellow that I am to criticism, this current version contained the barest of movement procedures ... all 4-legged creatures moved the same, and all 2-legged creatures moved the same. Immediately, there were cries of: "It's too simple! You've eliminated the differences between the various types of units!" Oh, well ... you win some ... you lose some ... I commanded the right flank forces of Goodness and Light; I immediately ordered a charge against the beastie thingies commanded by Tony Figlia, which were directly in front of me. I should note that the forces of Goodness and Light had a large assortment of mounted knights, the result of what I term a "painting binge" on my part, which produced the huge total of 3 additional stands of knights. Digression. I must note that when Hal Thinglum indulges in a "painting binge", it appears that he produces no less than 2,500 figures; my own "binges" are, in contrast, teeny-weeny spasmodic and twitchy occurrences, producing perhaps 6 to 12 figures ... End of digression. When my boys reached the enemy line, I selected one stand of Men a Arms as the lead unit. Then I diced to see how many supporting stands I could bring in. The result of toss indicated ... none! My Men at Arms were going in, all alone, unloved, and unsupported! I should note that the dice we used were 'skull dice', supplied in the BM inventory. These are 6-sided dice; on 3 of the sides are inscribed skulls, hence most of the tosses involve a 50 percent probability-of-hit per die. When I diced for supports for my Men at Arms, I tossed 3 dice ... the number of skulls showing was the number of supporting stands I could bring into the combat. Fortunately, Tony's beasts were also unsupported, and so it was simply stand on stand. The combat values of the different types of stands was given in the number of Hit Dice, also skull dice, they could toss. My Men at Arms tossed 3 dice, the beasties tossed 4. The number of skulls showing was the number of hits inflicted on the opposition. The number of stands in the melee, plus the number of hits scored on the opponent, combined with a random die roll, determined the winner of the melee. Both attacker and defender had incurred casualties, but in the outcome determination, my Men at Arms lost and were driven back. So much for my first attack. At the end of every half bound, a critical reaction roll took place. All stands on the field which had incurred casualties from fire and melee, took a reaction test. Each stand tossed a number of skull dice: 3 basic dice plus skull dice equal to the number of casualty markers on the stand. If the resultant toss showed 3 skulls, the stand was whisked off the field to the Rally Zone, still retaining its markers. My Men at Arms had 2 hit markers on them, hence they tossed a total of 5 dice. Alas! ... 3 skulls showed up, and so the Men at Arms ran off the field. Tony's beasts also took the test, since they, too, retained markers from the melee; they were luckier; they remained in place. At the same time the reaction test for units on the field takes place, a similar one occurs for stands already in the Rally Zone. This is truly a "killer" test, for if 3 skulls show up, the testing stand is destroyed, never to be seen again. My right flank forces recovered from their visits to the Rally Zone in fairly good shape; I didn't lose too many stands to the killer test. It was on our left flank, however, that the fighters for Goodness and Light and Mom's Apple Pie suffered most. Fred Haub was in charge on the left flank. And Fred suffered from a horrible run of lousy dice tossing. When he wanted to hit the enemy, no skulls at all showed up; in contrast, when his troops tested their reaction, too many skulls appeared. The result was that Fred's stands all drifted into the Rally Zone. And when it was time for the killer test, and Fred attempted to recover his missing stands, once again the skulls appeared, and Fred's units disappeared. Despite the gradual attrition of our own forces, the enemy attrition was greater. This, in part, was due to our archers. At game's end, I asked the participants to comment on the rules. Two comments in particular referred to the archery procedures. Jeff Wiltrout, who commanded the center of our line, stated: "My machinegun crossbowmen with support from the flamethrowing archers cleared out the ... (enemy)" Bob Hurst, in charge of the center of the beastie line of battle, commented: "The ... (other) ... guys had too many bowmen..." In the firing procedures, each stand tossed 3 dice, and the skulls showing up indicated the number of hits. Despite the above comments, I don't think the number of dice was excessive, I think the problem arose from the range of the missile weapons. Bows fired a distance of 5 hexes, and crossbowmen fired for 4. This was about half the width of the field. Which meant that an excessive missile barrage took place before the front lines could contact. In the center of the battle field, General Hurst, facing the Wiltrout "machinegunners", simply ordered his beasties to retreat under the heavy bow fire. He had no bowmen of his own with which to retaliate.. This retreat incensed General Figlia (who faced no bowmen at all), who kept exhorting General Hurst to charge out into the shower of arrows, and smite the enemy. General Figlia's end-of-battle comment showed his disdain for the missile fire effect his own men never encountered and mentioned Prince Evilan, the notorious Chaos commander. Tony had moved Prince Evilan to the center to help General Hurst's forces out. The Figlian comment was: "Prince Evilan led his dark forces to victory despite Prince Bob's lackluster performance and fear of archers. The heroic Prince led Prince Bob's and his own troops in a bloody melee to defeat ... (the nightmare archers)..." You will note that Tony, even though referring to a "lackluster" performance, promoted General Hurst to the level of "Prince". But this note was penned in the heat of battle, and some excuse can be made for the Figlian mistake. Another interesting comment was that of John Shirey, in command of the Chaos ogre battalion (2 stands, each of 1 figure). When John's ogres moved, they tossed 2 dice; if 2 skulls showed up, the ogres would go off on a "rampage" so desired by John. Unfortunately, 2 skulls never appeared, and the ogres marched complacently up and down the field, completely "rampageless". "The only problem was that my ogres never developed the proper battle lust to go berserk and go on a rampage." General Haub's comment simply referred to his rotten dice tosses: "I came, I saw, I died in the Rally Zone" My own post-battle comment referred to the Flames-Of-Hell. Prior to the battle, we had designated a number of hexes as each containing a fire pit. These were definitely hexes to avoid. In melee, the losing side moved back 4 hexes; the first 3 hexes were selected by the winning side, the remaining hex was the choice of the loser's. My troops made some 3 or 4 charges against the Figlian beasties, losing all of the resultant combats. And each time, General Figlia took great joy in retreating my men right through the fiery pits. When a stand went through the fires, it rolled 3 dice, taking casualty markers indicated by the number of skulls that appeared. My troops' plaintive cries of "Oh! Ouch! Oops! Aah! Eek! Yike!" brought tears to my eyes. I have taken a vow... Figlia shall pay for this ... Back to PW Review January 1996 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com